


The People That Change Our Lives

by Canon_Is_Relative



Series: In Spite of All The Danger [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's nearly Christmas. One morning, shortly before John leaves Baker Street to go home for the holiday, John finds Sherlock in a rare communicative mood and John learns more about his past than he'd known before. This candid sharing continues as they text and email over Christmas, the barrier of space between them serving to break down other barriers each has constructed. Everything comes to a head when John returns home, bringing Harry along to keep an eye on her over New Years, and they once more face the fact that, just as sharing a flat is not so simple as clearing a space in the fridge and going halves on rent, sharing a life is not so straightforward as sharing breakfast or long-buried secrets or even a bed.</p><p>Prologue :: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/269436">Comfort.</a></p><p>Chapter One ::  In which Sherlock is in a sharing mood and John learns about his association with a young man named Victor Trevor, adding a new level of meaning to Sherlock's assertion that the Carl Powers case was <i>where he began</i>; Sherlock attempts to brew John the perfect cup of tea; Lestrade asks John's help on followup for a case and the two of them end up going for a Christmas drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Deeper Part of the Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> This work can be read alone, but is intended as the sequel to "The Mystery of the Girl With No Face."
> 
> A million thanks to ImpishTubist(AO3) for encouragement and flailing and general awesomeness, to mortalasabee(LJ) and dragonfly(AO3/DW) for your outside eyes and keeping me accountable to my writerly duty to never do less than my best, and to thesmallhobbit(LJ) for Brit-picking.
> 
> [Title](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sdHfdj0YuI) and [chapter title](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8n7PfsoJf4) from lyrics by Carbon Leaf.

John came out from Sherlock's room still sleep-rumpled, wearing a jumper over flannel pyjamas and a soft smile. Sherlock looked around at him with a pleasant, "Morning, John," before going back to the papers spread out on the breakfast table. John paused behind him, lifting a hand to squeeze his shoulder.

 

"Morning. What's all this?" He frowned as he scanned the page directly in front of Sherlock. "Carl Powers again?"

 

"Just putting some things in order." Sherlock spared him a glance and a smile over his shoulder. "No need to worry."

 

"I never said I…never mind." John looked away from the stack of photos that had caught his eye--among them Carl's shoes and the rubble of the pool. He picked up several sheets of paper clipped together bearing sprawling lines of text in an unfamiliar hand. "What's this, then?"

 

Sherlock took them from him. "Notes."

 

"That's not your writing."

 

"Victor wrote. I dictated."

 

"Victor?"

 

"Friend from school."

 

"When you say 'friend'…?"

 

"I mean _friend._ "

 

"Oh." John walked around to sit on the other side of the table. By his right elbow was what looked to be a copy of a police report, type-written, with a note scrawled in the margin. He tilted his head to read it. _He's dead, darling. He can wait. I'm alive--I won't. Come to bed._

 

John blinked. Looked up at Sherlock, brows folding in on themselves. Sherlock glanced up, caught the look, and dropped his eyes immediately to the note John had just read. He snatched it up, looking for a moment as though he might crumple it in his fist. But he only tucked it into a file which he dropped onto the stack by his feet.

 

"What…?" John began, tentative despite his burning curiosity.

 

"Nothing. Tea? It's getting cold."

 

John looked up to meet Sherlock's eyes, then followed his glance to the mug by his left hand. He breathed a soft laugh, shaking his head, and picked up the mug. Gunpowder green. Every time he thought he understood the message Sherlock meant to convey like this, with a cup of his favourite tea, the detective would go and change it up on him. He had no idea what to make of the offering, this morning. Without looking at him, Sherlock pushed a plate with one chocolate croissant and one sesame roll across the table to him. The bread was still warm, fresh from the shop across the street. John frowned.

 

Sherlock glanced at him and then away, saying distractedly, "Oh, what now? Read all you like into the tea but can't bread just be bread?"

 

To avoid answering, John sipped his tea. It was over-brewed, bitter and harsh on his tongue and barely tepid to boot. He swallowed quickly. "Thanks," he said, and reached for the croissant.

 

Sherlock looked up at him. Really looked. He put down the pen he'd been tapping against his temple and folded his hands, resting his chin on them as he gazed across the table.

 

John chewed, swallowed, and let him look.

 

"What's wrong with the tea?"

 

"What? Nothing." John lifted the mug again, watching Sherlock over the rim.

 

"There is. I've done it wrong."

 

John felt his lips quirk upwards as he mirrored Sherlock's position, hands clasped in front of him. He very much wanted to laugh, watching the consulting detective turn the whole of his attention to this; the Mystery of the Morning Tea. "It's a bit over-brewed for my taste, is all."

 

Sherlock gave that false-start of a smile that usually accompanied John telling him something a bit ridiculous, something he hadn't been expecting; _getting in a row with a machine,_ for instance, or _losing a bet with a thundercloud._

 

John found himself grinning along as Sherlock's eyes crinkled around the edges, and asked him, "What? What've I said now?"

 

"It's not _what_ you've said, but _how_ you've said it. You're…you use such inoffensive language, John, it's charming. 'It's a bit over-brewed.' Absolutely blameless. As though the tea itself ought take the responsibility for being not to your liking."

 

"Well I'm not about to blame _you_ for letting tea steep too long when you made it for me without my asking. It's very kind of you to make it for me at all."

 

"Is it?" Sherlock raised his eyebrows, but stood before John could reply and reached across the table to take the mug from between his hands, making for the kitchen.

 

"No, Sherlock--" John pushed back his chair and followed him. "It's fine, really. You don't need to--" But Sherlock was already pouring it in the sink. John gave up protesting and leaned against the counter opposite, watching him work.

 

Sherlock put the kettle back on the stove and turned to empty the sodden leaves from the teapot. He pulled down the tin and, using his fingers and some measurement system John didn't know, doled out what seemed to be a precise amount of tea into the pot, a small line of concentration between his brows. He watched the kettle, listened to it, actually, keeping his ear cocked toward the stove, turning on some signal that was lost on John to take the kettle off the burner. His concentration on the task at hand was absolute, and John found himself rubbing a hand over his mouth and feeling…for lack of a better term… _dazzled_ by the mundane task.

 

At last Sherlock picked up the steaming teapot and carried it with the empty mug back to the breakfast table, placing both in front of John's spot. That done, he sat down and folded his hands, waiting patiently for John to join him.

 

With lips pressed together to hide a bemused smile, John did, waiting to see where this was going. Sherlock checked his watch and let his gaze drift to the teapot in front of John, then back up to meet his eyes, questioning.

 

John laughed and poured out a splash of tea into his mug, slurping it and shrugging--not ready yet. He picked up the croissant. "Is watching tea steep really so interesting?"

 

Sherlock shrugged too, and grinned.

 

"Ok, if you insist. But if we're really doing this, you could at least pass the time by telling me what you're doing, dragging out all this ancient history."

 

"Not so ancient," Sherlock passed over a carefully preserved newspaper article. "And yet as far back as I usually care to remember."

 

"Right," John said, looking at the smiling face of Carl Powers captured forever between laminated sheets. "'Where you began,' I remember."

 

"Indeed." Sherlock's eyes focused on a spot above John's left shoulder, jaw tight with some unknowable memory.

 

John looked away after a moment, feeling suddenly like he was intruding, and poured out the tea, deciding it had steeped long enough. Sherlock blinked and came back to the present. John rolled his eyes when he saw him note the time with a slight nod.

 

"It's tea, Sherlock. It's not a constant, you've got to just…get a feel for it."

 

Sherlock looked at him oddly, his voice rumbling across the space between them. "I am."

 

John sighed, and let his gaze drift across the papers, eyes picking out Victor's desultory scrawl here and there. Drawing his fingers through the crumbs left on his plate, he broke the comfortable silence with, "You know, I was sixteen when I first fell in love."

 

Across from him, Sherlock shifted in his chair, drawing his feet up onto the rungs, straightening a stack of papers. "I didn't know. And I can't see why I'd need to."

 

John sipped his tea, eyes wandering over the room, not looking at Sherlock. "Her name was Marta Petrescu, and she…" Sherlock gave a long-suffering sigh, and John smiled. "She was miles above me, of course. Never should've given me the time of day. But…sixteen…you know. It's the time for it."

 

"Is it?" Sherlock's voice was tight, intended to shut him down.

 

"It is. Sometimes I think it's the only time for it. There were a few couples in my year who ended up getting married later on, most of them are still together, happy, with families and such. I think when you're young like that is the best time to fall in love. Before you've really seen the world and been hurt and learned how to be afraid. I don't think you can ever love so fiercely as the first time."

 

He paused, expecting a sharp rejoinder. Really, expecting Sherlock to either tell him to shut up or just to leave and effectively end the conversation. But he didn't; he sat there with his hands stilled over his piles of paper. John took another slow sip, licked his lips, and continued on softly.

 

"Marta was brilliant. She made me want to be…better. For the first time in my life, I felt that drive, like life was maybe bigger than I was, and I wanted to rise to meet it head-on, you know? I wanted to do better. Be better. Study harder." He laughed softly and shook his head, finally looking at Sherlock, whose eyes remained fixed in the steam still rising off John's tea. "I didn't, but I _wanted_ to, and that's what matters. Love will do that."

 

Sherlock's eyes snapped to John's, hard and unfathomable. "Will it?"

 

John lifted his chin, taken aback by his tone. Sherlock looked away and stuffed more papers into a file and dropped it into the stack. He held out his hand and John passed him the book by his elbow.

 

"So what happened with the Carl Powers case, then? How'd you even come on it, you never told me." John asked as Sherlock paged through the book.

 

Sherlock found the page he was looking for and didn't look up as he replied. "Summer after my first year. The story broke just as I got back to the house my family had taken for me while I was at university."

 

"Back from where, holidays with your family?"

 

"No." Sherlock looked at John, unblinking for almost a full minute, before going back to his work. "I'd been in the country for a few weeks, staying with Victor. I was meant to stay the whole summer but his father didn't like me."

 

John closed his mouth around the _Oh_ he'd been about to voice at this new mention of Victor. Instead he said, "Didn't like you? Why not?"

 

Sherlock spared him a withering glance and John chuckled.

 

"You figured out something about him and said it out loud, didn't you?"

 

"Mm. I had no experience interacting with people like him, not at that point."

 

"God," John rested his chin on his fist and considered Sherlock openly. "I'm trying to imagine you at sixteen and I just…it's just not coming to me."

 

He received a brief glance and briefer smile before Sherlock was standing and pacing away, re-shelving the book and taking down another, standing by the bookcase to look something up in his index, restless fingers flying over dusty pages.

 

"I was quite appalling, I'm sure it's no great stretch of the imagination. And while Victor's father was too genteel to say 'piss off,' the message was clear." He put down the index and tossed one and then two books onto the sofa before picking out still another. "Still, I do owe him a debt, of sorts. Much as he didn't like me, he was the first to suggest I turn my powers of observation and deduction in more profitable directions. He loved his detective novels, did Mr Trevor. Told me I could be the real-world edition of Sid Halley. I'm sure he would have been happy to be the one to amputate my left hand to further the resemblance…"

 

He trailed off, reading, and John drank his tea in silence. Sherlock in a sharing mood was a rare thing, and these were occasions to be treasured. But they'd been happening with some frequency, this last week or two. Sherlock letting him in, allowing him glimpses…glimpses of the great heart hidden somewhere beneath the great brain. But only ever glimpses; never enough to satisfy his growing curiosity. John watched him, waiting without hoping that he would continue the stream of reminiscence. But, after several minutes, he did.

 

"I'd decided to leave much earlier than originally planned, to cut short the discomfort I was causing everyone. As it happened, as I was boarding the train little Carl Powers was drowning in the pool. I read about it the next day and when Victor returned awhile later he found me obsessed by it."

 

"Obsessed by it--because you'd worked out it had to be murder?"

 

"Because I'd worked out something was off. And no one would listen to me."

 

"So how does Victor fit in, how did you meet him?"

 

"An unfortunate accident. I was crossing the lawn one day when his bull terrier took exception to my ankle. He came to visit me in the hospital to beg me not to make him put the beast down. I told him I couldn't care less what he did with the miserable creature and asked him why he was so lonely that he required the company of an ill-behaved canine."

 

John snorted. "Hardly a promising beginning."

 

"Perhaps not. But a beginning, nonetheless." Sherlock blinked. He brushed his knuckles across his lips and then swept the books on the sofa down to the floor before collapsing grandly onto it himself. He burrowed down into its worn-out embrace and rested his hands on his chest.

 

John fancied he could hear the gears--no, that was wrong, Sherlock's brain didn't run on anything as outdated as _gears_ ; the synapses, then, the microprocessors--whirring behind his eyes. What decision was he brewing in that head of his? _How does a brain like Sherlock's work? And why has he decided to let me hear this?_

 

"And in the beginning…" Sherlock orated, the words sounding ancient and strange in John's ears as he turned his chair to face him fully. "From the beginning, he pursued me. At the time I believed it was purely intellectual attraction, but with the benefit of hindsight and a great deal more experience, it's obvious that from the first he was attracted to me on a number of levels, and I chose to see only the one that I, as the subject-object and observer, found the most believable. Thinking logically, rather than through the lens of what I now know about Victor."

 

Realizing he was gripping the back of his chair hard, John relaxed his hand and muttered, "And off you go again, talking like you're some kind of machine instead of a human."

 

Sherlock arched a dark brow at him and held his eyes as he continued. "When I didn't respond to Victor's overtures the way he would have liked, once they became obvious enough that I could no longer pretend to misunderstand them, he began to drift away from me, though never quite breaking off our friendship. We met regularly to discuss what we were reading and to further the experiments we'd started together."

 

"Hang on," John said, frowning, waving at the stacks of papers around them. "Weren't you sixteen when all this happened? How old was he?"

 

"Fifteen, actually," Sherlock flashed him a broad grin. "I was fifteen when we first met, at the start of my first year. Victor was twenty-one. In his defence, I didn't enlighten him for a long time, and who's ever heard of a fifteen-year-old university student?"

 

John wrinkled his nose and shook his head with a deep frown.

 

Sherlock looked away at last, closing his eyes and tipping his chin up towards the ceiling. "He was the first person besides Mycroft whom I considered worthy of intellectual companionship. And certainly the first whose company I enjoyed. My first…equal…or…perhaps…colleague."

 

John felt an uncomfortable twist in his chest and looked quickly away, even though Sherlock's eyes were still closed. "Y'know, 'friend' works just as well."

 

Sherlock waved an impatient hand. "Hah. A _friend?_ I'd never had one before. And now, _now_ that I was finally free of my oppressive and _annoying_ family, now when I was free to do as I pleased, seemed an absurd time to start. There was so much to be done. But then, when Victor began a romantic and sexual relationship with his tutor that began to take up more and more of the time I was used to him giving to me, I became…hm. Fixated. I'm sure you'd say I was horrid. Horrid to him, to both of them, whenever we would happen to meet, all while insisting that nothing was wrong."

 

Sometimes when Sherlock spoke, John would find himself so attuned to him that all sounds and sensations outside of the space where the sound waves of his voice ebbed and flowed between them faded away. As silence fell--as silence spread out from the vacuum recently occupied by Sherlock's voice, Sherlock's story--John gradually began to tune back in to the sounds of the world outside 221b Baker Street. People clamoured outside, a harsh clatter of noise, the backdrop to their still and secret world within. A car door slammed in the street below and John shook himself.

 

"So what happened? Why did he take you to the country, then, instead of his tutor?"

 

Sherlock opened his eyes and turned a chilly smile on him. Kitten heels came tip-tapping up the stairs. "Because I won."

 

"Hoo-hoo, good morning loves," Mrs Hudson rapped lightly against the doorframe. "Is the doorbell broken again? It's the inspector."

 

John looked round to see Mrs Hudson step aside and admit the solid frame of Detective Inspector Lestrade. John blinked and felt his ears flush as he realized he was still in his pyjamas.

 

"Morning John, Sherlock," Lestrade nodded to them, hands in his jacket pockets. "Are you available then?"

 

As the silence stretched out, John realised Lestrade wasn't talking to Sherlock.

 

"What?" John looked blankly at him. "Sorry, for what?"

 

Lestrade rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall, glaring at Sherlock.

 

"Oh, didn't I say?" The detective's eyes were closed again, tips of his fingers resting beneath his chin. "Lestrade phoned earlier, said he'd be coming round this morning. Didn't say what for, case of some kind, I expect. Wants you, John."

 

"Oh. Well, I, yeah." John stood up, running a hand through his hair and glancing apologetically at the DI as he made for the stairs. "Give us a sec, yeah? Down in a few."

 

\---

 

"Sherlock, have you seen my--"

 

"Bedroom," came the reply from the sofa. Sherlock hadn't moved for the five minutes it had taken John to wash and dress.

 

Lestrade looked up at the sound of Sherlock's voice and glanced at John, who mumbled, "Oh, right," and slipped through the door into Sherlock's bedroom.

 

Lestrade had sat down in the armchair, not waiting for an invitation he'd known would never come, and picked up the untouched morning paper. He never got the chance to read the paper these days, and allowed himself the luxury of turning to the sports page. He sucked in a breath through his teeth--Arsenal was playing for shit, as usual.

 

John returned a moment later carrying his shoes. Lestrade folded up the paper and put it aside as John sat down to do up his laces.

 

"It's about the Washburn case. Miranda started asking for you last night."

 

John's face went white. "Oh, God, is she ok?"

 

Lestrade tried to smile. "She's fine. She will be. She's young."

 

Sherlock snorted indelicately. Lestrade ignored him. John's jaw clenched but he kept his eyes on Lestrade as he continued.

 

"We think she might talk to you. She's gone home with her aunt and uncle and they phoned up last night after she fell asleep to say that she finally started talking yesterday, and all evening she kept telling them all about Doctor John who saved her and took care of her."

 

Sherlock piped up from the sofa. "If you get the opportunity, ask her what her mother usually kept in the left-hand cupboard under the sink. And also if her father generally wore matching socks."

 

"How…never mind. You ready, John?" Lestrade stood with a soft groan--he'd stayed too late at the office last night, the cold and his worn-out old desk chair doing nothing good for his back.

 

"Yeah." John was hesitating, though, looking at Sherlock. After a moment Sherlock blinked his eyes open and tilted his head to look up at him, arching a magnificent eyebrow. Lestrade buttoned his coat and watched them covertly. John finally said, "You're not even going to try to talk your way into coming along?"

 

"Hah. Dull." Sherlock eyelids slipped half-shut, a sneer on his lips. "Lestrade will record the whole thing, I'll see it later."

 

Lestrade turned a snort into a cough, and didn't look up to see if John had looked around at him. Apparently the consulting detective hadn't told his partner that Lestrade had banned him--quite officially--from having any direct contact with this case. Children were not exactly Sherlock's forte, and Lestrade was not about to be responsible for Sherlock traumatizing the poor girl any worse than she'd already been.

 

It was John who'd found her, when they raided the house. The psycho had set up shop in their posh Kensington town home after murdering her parents--probably in front of her. She'd been hiding in the cupboard under the sink and it had been John who'd looked around and realized that there was a child in this family and none of the bones or body parts they'd found belonged to a child. It was John who'd pulled her out into the brightly lit kitchen and held her and soothed her all the way to the hospital, and John who had refused to leave her bedside until her aunt and uncle arrived.

 

Lestrade's grim amusement at Sherlock's deception faded quickly away as the images he tried to keep buried came flooding back to dance ruthlessly behind his eyes. His heart hammering away behind his ribs, he shoved his hands deep in his pockets, still watching them.

 

John was saying quietly, his back to Lestrade and blocking his view of Sherlock, "Eat something, ok? And…you better be ready to keep talking when I get back. I want to hear the rest of your story."

 

Sherlock loosed a long-suffering sigh and the couch groaned softly as he shifted on it, wriggling to burrow in deeper. "If there really isn't _anything_ more interesting to talk about. Perhaps."

 

Lestrade moved to the door, shaking his head slightly. The two of them were…well. If _Sherlock_ could find someone to put up with him…although it wasn't just that, not by a long shot; John _loved_ him. Adored him for some reason Lestrade fully expected to remain a mystery forever. He coughed slightly and John looked up and over his shoulder at him. With a last look at Sherlock he joined him by the door, reaching for his coat. Lestrade lead the way down to the police car waiting outside.

 

\---

 

It was barely afternoon when they left the Washburn's house, but John didn't even blink when Lestrade jerked his head down the road toward the high street and said, "Let's go for a drink. I'm done with this day."

 

They slid into seats at the end of the bar and Lestrade ordered a whisky. John shrugged and nodded when the bartender offered a pint.

 

They drank in silence for a minute before Lestrade, rolling his glass slowly between his fingers, said, "Miranda's not gonna be all right, is she."

 

It wasn't really a question, and John's sinuses burned with the effort of keeping his face blank. After a long moment he lifted his glass to his lips, shaking his head. "Don't think so. No."

 

"Jesus." Lestrade knocked back the rest of his drink and lifted his glass to the bartender. "Poor kid. Poor fuckin' kid."

 

John bit the inside of his cheek and put his lager down without drinking. He pushed a hand through his hair, focusing on the thought that he really needed to cut it before he saw his mum or she'd have a fit.

 

Lestrade pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes before scrubbing both hands through his hair, reminding John strangely of Sherlock. He blinked and looked down at his own hands. Sometimes he forgot that the two of them had known each other for a long time before he came into the picture.

 

He asked suddenly, without planning to, "Do you have kids, Inspector?"

 

Lestrade gave a weak chuckle, and shook his head. "Me? Nah. When would I have had the time? Cheers," he nodded to the bartender and started on his second drink. John was quiet. "Always meant to. Never had the time."

 

John hummed and sipped his lager. He'd always thought that was such a bullshit excuse. If something was important to you you'd make the time. Just say you think you'd be a crap father and be done.

 

Something of that must have bled into his tone, Lestrade was a detective after all, because he turned and looked at John with a rueful smile. "Yeah, I know." He heaved a long sigh and swirled his drink around his glass. "I just couldn't ever commit to the idea of bringing some helpless little thing into such a shit world, not with what I see every day."

 

Lestrade finished his drink and shook himself, turning with a slight smile. "What about you, John? Now that'd be a sight, kids in 221 Baker Street."

 

"Oh, God," John lifted a hand to his mouth as he nearly snorted Stella out his nose. "What a nightmare, can you imagine?" He started laughing, sounding a bit manic but happy to be thinking of something--anything--else.

 

Lestrade grinned. "Sherlock would have them dissecting eyeballs in the kitchen before age three."

 

"Sherlock would never be allowed anywhere _near_ any child of mine. Christ he's nothing but a big kid himself. Mrs Hudson would be thrilled, though."

 

Lestrade gave him an odd look but laughed along with him, shaking his head at the bartender when he returned to offer him a top-up.

 

John wiped his eyes and gave one last snort of amusement before resting his forearms on the bar and saying more seriously, "No, no kids in my future, unless something completely unforeseen happens. At this point if I ever had a kid it'd pretty much have to be by accident." He looked up at Lestrade and gave a small grin, rubbing the back of his neck. "And living with Sherlock has been a pretty effective prophylactic, so far. There was definitely a time when I was sure I wanted to be a father, but…my own dad…my whole family…"

 

"Oh. Right." Lestrade blinked and nodded, glancing away, then back at him. There was a moment of awkward hesitation--awkward because each knew what the other was thinking, and knew the other knew it--before Lestrade's habit of blunt honesty asserted itself and he said, "You lost your dad pretty young, right?"

 

John sighed. "Yeah. I was away, too, when it…I was here in town. My first year at Bart's."

 

Lestrade gave a sympathetic grimace. "Shit, John. M'sorry."

 

"Yeah, well." John swallowed the last of his lager and shrugged.

 

It had been a particularly grisly crime scene on a blistering July day when Sherlock turned to John and said, loudly, _John--your father committed suicide, maybe you can advise; how would you, as the grieving son, react in this instance?_ The row that had followed-- _I told you that in_ confidence, _Sherlock!_ How _can you not understand why I'm upset about this?_ \--had almost resulted in John moving out of Baker Street.

 

He realised the silence was stretching out and forced a grim smile. "Hey at least my mum's still around and my sister's only a functioning alcoholic. In all honesty I'd rather have them than Sherlock's family."

 

"True," Lestrade said gravely, before venturing a laugh. "Very true. From what I've heard…and experienced…Sherlock's more or less the normal one in that family."

 

"Oh," John said conversationally, "so you've met Mycroft Holmes, too?"

 

"'Met'…that's one word for it."

 

"By far the _kindest_ word for it."

 

Lestrade snorted. "So what are you doing for the holidays, not going to his, I hope?"

 

"No…no I'm going home. Soon, actually. Day after tomorrow. The only downside to being unemployed, apart from having no money I suppose, is that my mum can blackmail me into spending two weeks at home for Christmas."

 

"Sherlock going with you, then?"

 

"No." John blinked. "He's staying here. And probably looking forward to having a holiday from _me._ "

 

"Oh. He won't be…no, no I'm sure he _won't_ be lonely. Sure he'll miss you, though."

 

John shook his head and smiled down at the bar, feeling the lager start to catch up with his empty stomach. The ball of warmth in his chest that belonged to Sherlock, that usually stayed quietly tucked away over the course of a day, was quietly glowing and growing and spreading out into his limbs.

 

In the weeks following the Annabelle Sykes/Heather Waters case, he'd spent perhaps one night in every four or five sleeping beside Sherlock in his bed. But over this past week he'd seen the inside of his own bedroom only to change his clothes or check to see that the window was shut tight against the deepening chill. After the first night, when Sherlock had specifically requested it, he couldn't tell you how it had come to be like this. They didn't talk about it, and it didn't need to be talked about. They didn't _cuddle,_ despite John's tease about it on the way down to Dover, but every few nights John would wake up to find Sherlock slumbering peacefully beside him with fingers pressed to his chest. And this very morning John had woken first, morning light just slanting in through the narrow window, and along with the consciousness that tripped lazily through his leaden limbs had come the realization that their hands were loosely clasped between them beneath the duvet.

 

The chirp of Lestrade's mobile made them both jump. Lestrade pulled it out and sighed, turning slightly away to answer, "Detective Inspector Lestrade."

 

John pulled his own phone out to see three text messages awaiting his attention.

 

 _Finished yet? SH_

 _Think I may have solved Lestrade's case. He won't like it. Tell him to text me. SH_

 _You still have my card. Get the shopping while you're out? SH_

 

"Right. Thanks. I'll let you know. Yeah." Lestrade hung up with a heavy sigh, rubbing his temples, then glanced at John, nodding at his phone. "What's he have to say?"

 

"That he's solved your case and you should text him."

 

"Of course he has." Lestrade scrolled through his phone, typing briefly before putting it back in his pocket and pulling out several notes, laying them on the bar. John opened his mouth to object but Lestrade waved away his protestations, calling it the only kind of Christmas gift he was any good at giving.

 

He continued, sounding a bit hesitant, gesturing towards the bar and their empty glasses. "And anyway I've been meaning to…since last April, since the hospital. Shouldn't have taken me this long. Never enough time for friends, is there? And I'm sorry about that. I'm trying to…you know. Do better at…all this."

 

John ducked his head to hide his surprise-- _friends?_ \--and cleared his throat. "Yeah. Me too. It's…yeah. Thanks."

 

Lestrade huffed a laugh and looked away. John blinked, and stuck out his hand. Lestrade took it automatically.

 

"Happy Christmas, then. Thanks for the drink. Let's do it again for New Year's."

 

Lestrade gave a sudden grin that lifted a decade at least from his features and nodded too. "Plan on it." He released his grip on John and nodded once again. "Right. I'm off, then. See you, have a good holiday. My best to Sherlock, as well. Not that he cares."

 

John laughed and reached for his jacket, shaking his head. "No, no, you're right, there. He doesn't. But thanks, for him, from me."


	2. We Meet The People That Change Our Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Two :: In which John is at home for Christmas and Sherlock stays in Baker street and their separation anxiety comes out to play as they text and email each other almost hourly.

\-----

 _22 December 11:43_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** S. Holmes   
**Subject:** That job

I've just realized. With the case and the holidays and everything, I never replied to that job advert. Did you plan that?

Have they fixed the heat yet?

You know it's still not too late to come out here. You never know, maybe we could find you a Christmasy case to solve.

Also, my family doesn't believe that you exist, they think I'm making you up.

\- John

\-----

 

22 December 11:55

 _Will write you that letter if you still need it. No heat yet, considering appropriating Lestrade's. I have no desire to be the Watson family's Christmas conversation piece. SH._

 _What's got you in a strop?  
Hang on--appropriating Lestrade's? Please tell me you're not seriously considering breaking into a DI's home?_

 _Not in a strop. SH  
His lack of security system is practically an invitation. SH  
Decided against it. Too much trouble. SH_

 _Why did you just call me? SH_

 _Why didn't you pick up?_

 _I prefer to text. SH_

 _Are you all right?_

 

\-----

 _22 December 14:15_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** S. Holmes  
 **Subject:** Re: That job

Company's begun to arrive. Not much family, my cousins mostly live abroad and a lot of the older relatives have passed on in recent years. My mum always had lots of friends, though, and this year they'll be here in force. I think she figures the more people that are here, the easier it'll be to distract from any scene Harry and Clara might make. Harry says she's sober but I don't know if I believe her. Though if there's anything in the world that could make her pull her act together, it'd be those kids. I guess Clara doesn't even have to let her see them. I don't know honestly--I try not to keep up on my family's news for a reason.

Are you sure you wouldn't like to come out? My sister's a pain in the arse but my mum makes the best Christmas dinner you've ever had.

Think of all the new people to deduce, Sherlock.

\- John.

\-----

\-----

 _22 December 14:19_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** Mrs. Hudson  
 **Subject:** Happy Christmas, a little early, Mrs. H.

Say, do you think you could look in on Sherlock before you leave for your sister's, Mrs. Hudson? He's not answering me. I know it makes no difference to him but I hate thinking of him all alone on Christmas.

Thanks,

\- John

\-----

\-----

 _22 December 16:20_  
 **From:** Mrs. Hudson  
 **To:** John H. Watson  
 **Subject:** Happy Christmas, love

So nice to hear from you, love. I hope you're having a lovely time with your family. What do you think of this weather? Mrs Turner's boarder, the one who wears those lovely jumpers and teaches science at the local comprehensive, says it'll likely snow before the week's out. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? A bit of Christmas snow.

You'll be pleased to hear that Sherlock's as happy as a clam. You know how he is. It's an ice box up there but he won't let me turn the heat up. He says it's an experiment and you know how I don't like to argue with his experiments. I made him a cuppa and he even thanked me before telling me to leave him be. You're a dear to worry about him but you know how he is, to a mind like his one day is the same as the next--I don't think he cares a jot for Christmas.

How he ever got along without us to look after him, I'll never know. But don't you spend your holiday fussing over him. He's a big boy.

You tell your mother happy Christmas from me, dear.

Love,

Mrs Hudson.

\-----

22 December 17:39

 _Sherlock, Mrs H. tells me there's nothing wrong with the heat. What are you playing at?_

 _John, I'm very busy. If you could keep the distractions to a minimum that would be marvellous. You've really nothing better to do than text me? I would've thought you'd be enjoying the holiday. SH_

 _The holiday in general? Yes. The holiday from you, which is what it sounds like you meant? Don't be an idiot.  
Why do you think I keep trying to get you to come join us?_

 _So that you can prove my existence to your family? SH  
Is it that they think I'm a delusional invention of yours, or that they don’t believe I'm as mad as you're telling them I am? SH_

 _I've told you, I prefer to text. SH_

 _Would you answer your goddamn phone?_

 

\-----

 _23 December 04:08_  
 **From:** S. Holmes  
 **To:** John H. Watson  
 **Subject:** (no subject)

Good news - heat back on. Experiment concluded.

You left a jar of pickles in the fridge. I'm going to eat them. Do you mind?

How is the "ritual celebration of familial humiliation" progressing? You indicated that her children were the only thing that would keep Harry in line - has that held true? I wasn't aware that you were an uncle. Whose children are they, biologically? I find it odd that I didn't know this about you.

Mrs Hudson has left to visit her sister, after spying on me as per her instructions from you, and the flat is perfectly quiet. It's lovely and unsettling.

What does one do on Christmas eve's eve?

SH

\-----

\-----

 _23 December 09:10_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** S. Holmes  
 **Subject:** A Christmas Mystery  
Attachment: harry_clara_kids.jpeg

Sherlock,

Here's something to occupy you (for all of five seconds). This is Harry and Clara and the kids from two years ago. Their names are Billy, Chloe and Ella. You tell me their story.

See I told you you should have come with me--there's loads more people here you could be deducing as we speak. Not that we're speaking now. But we could be. Obviously.

What was your experiment? I'm glad it's over, whatever it was.

Here at the Watsons' we have a grand Christmas tradition. It's called "get shitfaced to forget how fucked your life is."

Joking. A little. No one really knows about Harry and mum won't talk about it or make any kind of accommodation for her--which is such bullshit. She's supposed to just tough it out while everyone around her drinks rum punch and eggnog? Clara doesn't get here until tomorrow. Trying not to think about it.

What does the Holmes family do for Christmas?

\- John

\-----

\-----

 _23 December 09:44_  
 **From:** S. Holmes  
 **To:** John H. Watson  
 **Subject:** Re: A Christmas Mystery

We do what any rational-minded family does; we ignore it.

All three children are biologically Clara's, and all three share the same father. Clara's ex-husband. They were married for a year at least before Billy was born.

Billy is the eldest child, and at the time the photograph was taken he was eight years old - or seven and tall for his age. Chloe is the elder girl, six. Ella is the youngest and her age is hard to tell, obscured as she is by her mother's arms. I'd put her no younger than four and possibly newly five from looking at the family as a whole; it's a bit of a shot in the dark but I'd say that Clara was aware that she was a lesbian for the whole length of her marriage and the birth of her final child was her breaking point.

Billy was old enough and aware enough to understand was happening to his family. He is an unhappy child - or was, then, and I'm assuming two years and another divorce hasn't done him any kindness. He resents Harry. Chloe was clearly doing all right when the photo was taken - her affection for and acceptance of Harry is plain to see. Their bond was a source of contention with Billy. They sent him away to school for the year before this was taken, but at this point in time were considering keeping him home.

Even in this happy moment Clara is worried for her children - she offers her unconditional love to the only one who will accept it, Ella, who was too young to remember a time when her family was anything other than this.

The family dynamic shifted drastically when Clara came out and after the divorce, obviously, but Clara has been a husband's wife and her children's mother for most of her adult life and her ideas of family are firmly fixed - undoubtedly a source of contention between her and Harry. Probably Harry, with her high-powered job, masculine nickname and certain male-trending personality traits, such as her inability or unwillingness to verbalize her emotions, seemed an ideal new mate for Clara's new life. She represented what Clara had learned to expect in a partner, in different wrappings.

No wonder their marriage didn't last long, each was substituting a patch-up for a cure. But analgesics wear off. Harry may have forged a bond with Chloe and, from things you've said, been attached to Ella as well, but she was not the childrens' mother nor their father, and Billy hated her.

All it should have taken to end things was one night of finding that Harry had been drinking when she was supposed to be caring for the children. But Clara was desperate, had already lived through one failed marriage, and was terrified of another. Was terrified of being alone. That's why the marriage lasted as long as it did - and I can only imagine that Billy hates Clara for it.

There. How did I do? Did I include enough speculation and romance to satisfy you?

Still bored.

\- Sherlock

\-----

23 December 13:49

 _You are amazing._

 _So you've said. Did I get anything wrong? SH_

 _Nothing major, no._

 _Where do you fit into their family story? There's only so much of that I could glean from photograph of other people. You're not close to Harry so I can't imagine you spent much time with them. Did you actively like Clara or simply dislike how Harry treated her? SH_

 _I confess; Clara is not what I expected her to be. SH_

 _Getting busy here, will email you later._

\-----

 _23 December 20:19_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** S. Holmes  
 **Subject:** A Christmas Mystery

I don't really fit into their family story, to tell the truth. I wasn't even at the wedding, I was in Afghanistan. Harry and Clara were a flash in the pan. They happened and then they were no longer happening, and I know very little of what went on in between.

Harry's been a drinker for as long as I can really remember. When she was just a kid she'd be sneaking wine from the pantry, and then harder stuff, and then more often.

When my dad died, Harry was at home visiting. He'd asked us both to come for his birthday. I didn't know it but he'd been depressed for years. It must have been his last attempt to find a reason not to do it, and I couldn't, I had too much on at school, and mum was working nights at the hospital, so it was just Harry and dad, and Harry went off to find a drink. Really that's why I've never been able to be around Harry. Because she keeps doing that. Dad didn't have to die alone, Clara didn't deserve to be treated like trash. None of the people in her life will ever be as important to her as she is to herself. She doesn't even try.

Sorry, I'm not sure where all of that came from. I hope you don't mind. You probably worked it all out months ago anyway.

I think I'm off to bed. It's barely after 8:00 but I'd honestly rather be unconscious than listen to my mother and sister right now. Harry's decided I must be gay and mum thinks all my problems could be solved with a haircut and the right woman.

John

\-----

23 December 20:26

 _Does your mother have a certain woman in mind? SH_

 _Several, I'm sure. You got my email, then?_

 _Obviously. SH_

 _Yeah. Sorry about all the moaning and groaning. I generally try not to do that. I'm exhausted. Don't sleep well when I come here._

 _It's all right. I find information about your life to be generally engaging. And you're rarely so forthcoming. SH_

 _Yeah, neither are you. I'm still surprised you volunteered all that about Victor. I've been trying to reason out why you did that._

 _Why haven't you asked? SH_

 _Would you actually answer?_

 _Possibly. SH_

 _Ok then, why?_

 _Why what? SH_

 _You know damn well what._

 _Well, yes, but I am curious as to how you'll phrase your request. SH_

 _You are so…there aren't even words for what you are. Ok. Sherlock, I've never once heard you offer up information about yourself that made you seem vulnerable. Why, then, did you decide to tell me all that about Victor?_

 _Ah. You want to know how I came by the decision. Well. You weren't scared off by the violin or the head in the fridge and it doesn't bother you when I go for days without speaking. SH_

 _So this is phase two, then?_

 _How do you mean? SH_

 _When we met you said potential flatmates should know the worst about each other._

 _Yes. SH_

 _You never did finish the story, though._

 _What more did you want to know? SH_

 _How did it end? And what did you mean, you "won"?_

 _I won because I succeeded in diverting his attention from his tutor and transferring it to myself. SH_

 _How?_

 _Go to sleep, John. SH_

 _You're a right bastard._

 _I know. Sleep well. SH_

 _Really?_

 _Really. SH_

 _I hate you._

 _No, you don't. SH_

 _Oh, just keep it up, then._

 _Good night, John. SH_

 _Night._

 

\-----

 _24 December 02:34_  
 **From:** S. Holmes  
 **To:** John H. Watson  
 **Subject:** Re: A Christmas Mystery

Late spring, the end of my first year at university, I asked Victor if I was still invited along to his house for the summer holidays. He'd asked me ages before and I'd said no, I'd have too much on over the summer to leave.

He was surprised when I asked him, said something about his new boyfriend. I dismissed him; told Victor he was dull, and convinced him quite easily that it was I who deserved his time and attention.

I was quite used to manipulating the emotions of people around me to get what I wanted. This was the first time I'd done so with Victor. He fell like a stone through a wet paper bag.

You know what it's like to win someone. No--for you I'd choose a different word. Earn. You are, I'm sure, well acquainted with the emotional high and satisfaction of having earned the rights to affection and physical intimacy. Maybe you can begin to imagine then how I felt at winning Victor. Obtaining a monopoly on his time and attention through outplaying him and my opponent.

Whilst at his father's house, Victor, used to having a readily available sexual and emotional mate, quite naturally transferred much of those expectations onto me. And I, still high on my victory, allowed it to unfold. He was cautious around his father but forever stealing me away into quiet corners of the house or garden. He didn't press the issue that would have been the breaking point for me. It wasn't mere infatuation, he truly did believe that he felt something more for me. We continued to read and debate together and it became the more pleasurable for me for the knowledge of what we were to each other - even though I never determined what that was.

Does this satisfy your curiosity?

\- Sherlock

\-----

\-----

 _24 December 03:57_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** S. Holmes  
 **Subject:** A Christmas Mystery

Not in the least. You can't stop the story there. How did it end?

John

\-----

24 December 04:00

 _What are you doing awake? SH_

 _Told you, don't sleep well when I'm here._

 _Go on then, finish the story. How did it end? You shacked up at his father's house in the country…then what?  
Hang on, now I'm confused. I thought you weren't gay, I thought that was what you were getting at on the train. Is that what you meant, "he didn't press the issue"?  
So you let him kiss you and paw at you all because you were high on your victory? _

_Really, John. You have a knack for making anything and everything sound like the drama of a daytime telly programme. SH_

 _Oh, come on. You've told me this much, you can't stop now. I know how much you like your audience._

 _Just for that I ought to never say another word on the subject. SH_

 _You wouldn't. Look how nicely I'm asking, Sherlock. Please continue to tell me about your brilliant life? I want to hear more about how fantastic you were before you met me._

 _Are you intoxicated as well as sleep-deprived? SH_

 _I feel it, a bit. I'm acting a bit loopy, aren't I? I'm sorry, Sherlock. But I'm not just having you on, I want to hear the rest._

 _You know the rest. I left after a few weeks, and a week later Victor rejoined me and I no longer had the time for him. He was a distraction and a nuisance. He made notes on my official documents and mocked what he called my delusions of grandeur. He told me that I was nothing but a kid. SH_

 _So that was it?_

 _More or less. SH_

 _What's the "more"?_

 _It's tedious and dull. He tried to convince me that he held the cure for what he perceived to be my ailment. You saw the note he wrote. SH_

 _So he thought you should drop the case and focus on being his boyfriend._

 _Precisely. SH_

 _So when you say that's "where you began," you don't just mean your career.  
You mean, that's where you decided you couldn't do both.  
You decided you had to choose between being who you were, and leading what Victor probably called a "normal life."  
That's why you told me. You're warning me off._

 _Interesting analysis. SH_

 _I'm right, aren't I._

 _You're analysing a decades-old event through what even I must admit is the subjective filter of my own memory. I'm not sure you can claim any sort of "right" or "wrong" on this one, John. SH_

 _I guess you're right. But I think I'm more right._

 _I'm sure you do. However it's nearly sunup and you haven't slept properly for days. If you keep this up I'll be forced to send Mrs Hudson up to look after you. I didn't realise you ever needed looking after. SH_

 _I don't. It's you I'm worried about--how can I be sure you're sleeping? Or eating, for that matter? I hate knowing you're all alone._

 _I was alone for many years before you came along, John. SH_

 _I guess so, yeah. Hate thinking about that, too._

 _Go to sleep, my friend. SH_

 _I will if you will._

 _All right. SH_

 _Sweet dreams._

 _Indeed. SH_

\---

24 December 11:31

 _Clara, Chloe and Ella have arrived. (Billy is at his dad's.) Everyone being civil. A Christmas miracle._

I'm glad to hear it. SH

You weren't planning on using the rest of your shampoo, were you? You hardly need it, especially if you get the haircut your mother advises. SH

Dammit, Sherlock.

\---

25 December 02:21

 _John. Are you awake? SH_

 _Yes. Are you?  
That was meant as a joke. What's up? Bored?_

 _Yes. SH_

 _Nothing on?_

 _Nothing on, nothing up. Cold outside. Lestrade not answering. Nothing to do. SH_

 _For God's sake, don't bother Lestrade, it's Christmas eve._

 _Bored. Bored bored bored. SH_

 _You could stay up and wait for Father Christmas._

 _Dull. He never brings me what I ask for, anyway. SH  
That was a joke. SH_

 _It's a Christmas miracle.  
What would you like for Christmas, Sherlock?_

 _An interesting problem to solve. SH_

 _That wouldn't fit in Father Christmas's sack, I don't think._

 _One of the most interesting cases I worked on before I met you involved a red-haired dwarf and a toy poodle. Those would undoubtedly fit in F.C.'s sack. SH_

 _It's not "dwarf" this time of year, Sherlock; it's "elf."_

 _No such thing. SH_

 _You really haven't got even a scrap of Christmas spirit in you, have you. It's amazing._

 _Does that seriously surprise you at this point? SH_

 _Not in the slightest. Go on, then. Tell me about your ginger midget and his miniature pooch._

 _Dwarf. And toy poodle. And you wouldn't follow it anyway. SH_

 _And now we get to the reason you texted me. You miss having me around to insult._

 _That is low on the list, but if you like, yes. SH_

 _What list?_

 _The list of reasons I find your presence preferable to your absence. SH_

 _That sounds an awful lot like you miss me._

 _Does it? Interesting. SH_

 _I miss you too._

 _Also; interesting. SH_

 _What are you doing?_

 _Intellectually or physically? Or other? SH_

 _Just, what are you doing? Why are you awake? Have you been to bed yet? Eaten recently?_

 _And now we get to the reason you replied; you miss having me around to mother hen. At the moment I'm sitting by the fire, eating the last of Mrs Hudson's Christmas cake.  
I was playing for awhile but the pursuit is less gratifying without an audience to exclaim over my brilliance and my fingers got cold. SH_

 _Have you turned off the heat again?_

 _Not off, just down. The cold helps me think. SH_

 _What are you thinking about?_

 _You, at the moment. Earlier on I was thinking about the Niska case, but it wasn't interesting enough to hold my attention for long. SH_

 _So I'm more interesting than one of your cases? Sherlock I may die of shock._

 _For the moment, you could say that you are one of my cases. SH_

 _Guess I shouldn't be surprised. So, you're trying to deduce me? It'd probably be easier if you just asked me. You ought to know I'd tell you, whatever it is you want to know._

 _Possibly true. But this is more fun. SH_

 _You haven't even been asking me anything. What have you possibly been deducing from this conversation?_

 _How's Harry? SH_

 _Fine. Why?_

 _You had a nice evening with her. SH_

 _And?_

 _And nothing. Just inquiring. Showing interest. Isn't that what real people do in their real lives? SH_

 _Generally speaking, yes._

 _But somehow I've done it wrong. SH_

 _Didn't say that, did I?_

 _And now you're irritated. SH_

 _Dammit, Sherlock. You're infuriating via text. I'm not irritated with you._

 _What then? SH_

 _Just…nothing.  
Irritated with myself. With how I must be doing something to make you think I want you to change. I don't. You don't need to._

 _And what if, hypothetically, I wanted to? SH_

 _Why?_

 _Isn't that what counts? Wanting to? Or wanting to want to? Wanting to try? SH_

 _To try to what?_

 _To be better. SH_

 _Oh come off it._

 _I'm perfectly sincere, John. SH_

 _Better than what? In what way? Sherlock, you're--you. The only one in the world._

 _As are you. SH  
But still, you strive. SH_

 _As do you._

 _Within my sphere, yes. SH_

 _So now you've decided that you ought to extend your sphere to include protocol and common courtesy?_

 _No. Never mind, forget it. SH_

 _Oh for God's sake._

\---

25 December 10:41

 _Happy Christmas, Sherlock.  
I'm sorry about last night._

 _You are? SH_

 _Yeah. I am. I still don't get it, what you were talking about, but I'm sorry._

 _Don't be. All is well. SH_

 _All right. Did you get my present?_

 _I did. SH_

 _And?_

 _It's a plant. SH_

 _Yes, thanks, I'm aware of that._

 _I like it. SH_

 _You do?_

 _Yes. Thank you. SH_

 _You're welcome._

 _The man who sold it to me said it wouldn't need anything. No fertilization or anything, water no more than once a week, hardly even sunlight._

 _Ah. In that case, it's ideal. SH_

 _An experiment in seeing if we can keep something alive?_

 _Indeed. SH  
Have you decided when you're coming home? SH_

 _Oh, yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Do you think it'd be all right if Harry spent New Year's Eve at our place? Keep her out of trouble, you know. She's trying._

 _Of course. SH_

 _Thank you.  
Will the place be presentable?_

 _You left your bedroom in good order, she can sleep there. SH  
And I will clear up the living room. SH_

 _Right. And I'll just kip with you?_

 _If that continues to be acceptable to you. SH_

 _Yeah. Good. That'll be fine.  
Does it continue to be acceptable to you?_

 _Yes. SH_

\---

25 December 13:37

 _I feel like I ought to feel odd about that. But I don't. Do you?_

 _About what? SH_

 _Don't be dense._

 _I'm not. SH_

 _Really?_

 _Really. SH_

\---

25 December 16:54

 _I meant that I ought to feel odd about us sleeping together. But I don't._

 _Ah. I don't, either. I meant what I said on the way to Dover; you're a first-rate sleeping partner. SH_

 _Yeah, so are you.  
Do you know how long it's been since I shared a bed with anyone? Ages._

 _No, I don't know. But I'm curious. You're remarkably tight-lipped about your romantic past, John. Why is that? SH_

 _Interesting leap, from bed-sharing to romance._

 _Interesting in what way? You're a heterosexual man, ex-army, who's not close to his family. I can't imagine a non-romantic scenario that would have you sharing a bed with someone. SH_

 _So where do you fit in?_

 _That's an interesting question. SH_

 _Is it?_

 _I'd say so, yes. SH_

 _But you're not interested._

 _In what? SH_

 _Any of it._

 _Romance? SH_

 _Yeah._

 _It's a novel idea. I like the word. Romance, romantic, romance languages. Romanticism - individuality and free thought in a departure from classicism.  
The concept that a thing, a place, a moment or a connection can hold - can CONTAIN and EMBODY romance - it's quite captivating. A novel idea, as I said.  
But where it crosses paths with sexuality, leave me out. SH _

_I don't understand._

 _That's quite all right. SH_

 _Did something happen?_

 _What kind of a question is that? SH_

 _Did something happen to you to make you like this?_

 _Like what? SH_

 _To make you afraid of sex._

 _Ok, not afraid maybe. But to not want it._

 _If something did, if someone did something to you, if I could help, or even if I couldn't, I hope you'd tell me._

 _God, I couldn't take it. The thought of someone hurting you. If it was Victor. Christ, you were just a kid._

 _Sherlock?_

 _Come on, Sherlock. Answer your phone._

 _Look, I won't ask about it again, all right? I'll drop it, if you like._

 _Sherlock._

 

\-----

 _25 December 20:47_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** S. Holmes  
 **Subject:** Re: A Christmas Mystery

Sherlock, please answer me. What did I say? I'm worried about you.

Please call me. Or text me. Or email me.

\- John

\-----

\-----

 _25 December 20:49_  
 **From:** S. Holmes  
 **To:** John H. Watson  
 **Subject:** Re: A Christmas Mystery

I'm fine, John. Busy. Please stop distracting me. Experiment in progress.

SH

\-----

 

25 December 20:52

 _Bullshit._

 _Well you are in the country. Bovine excrement is to be expected. SH_

 _Stop it, Sherlock. Just stop. Why don't you trust me?_

 _Oh for heaven's sake, John. You've been watching too much crap telly. SH_

 

\-----

 _25 December 23:15_  
 **From:** S. Holmes  
 **To:** John H. Watson  
 **Subject:** Re: A Christmas Mystery

I am fine. There's nothing wrong with me. Nothing's "happened" to make me "like this." No one's "done" anything, and I have not been "hurt" or "damaged."

I appreciate your concern. It's ridiculous and misplaced, but as it comes from you, I appreciate it.

Please drop it.

SH

\-----

\-----

 _25 December 23:27_  
 **From:** John H. Watson  
 **To:** S. Holmes  
 **Subject:** Re: A Christmas Mystery

I don't understand you. It bothers me when you do this--when you stop talking to me and dismiss my concerns. Bothers me far more than it should, far more than makes sense. You were right, of course you were, when you said I'd never shared a bed with someone who wasn't a lover. That's why I said I felt like it should feel weird, with you. But it doesn't. And that's not nothing to me, Sherlock. This, whatever this is, isn't nothing. To me. Is it to you? This is important, Sherlock. Please don't ignore me.

I'm not trying to be like Victor. I'm not saying you should change or something's wrong with you. Just asking you not to shut me out.

\- John

\-----

 

26 December 01:01

 _I'm sorry that my behaviour has bothered you. I don't mean it to. SH_

 _I know you don't. That's not the problem._

\---

26 December 07:49

 _John, this isn't worth disrupting our lives over. SH_

 _What isn't?_

 _Whatever this is. Whatever's upsetting you, whatever we're bickering over. SH_

 _I have no idea, honestly. But I agree.  
So let's just call a re-do, start over?_

 _Good idea. SH_

 _Ok. Well, happy boxing day, Sherlock. Anything interesting on in London?_

 _Not really. Cold. SH_

 _Thought you liked the cold?_

 _I was simply commenting on a fact. SH_

\---

27 December 11:26

 _When are you coming home? SH_

 _Haven't we been over this? New Year's Eve. Train gets in 6ish._

\---

28 December 14:48

 _Are you angry with me? SH_

 _No. Are you with me?_

 _No. SH_

\---

"Sherlock?"

"Hello, John."

"Hi…is--are you all right?"

"Yes."

"What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing. Bored."

"It's three o'clock in the morning."

"Yes. Well. As I said. Dull."

"Why'd you call?"

"You've been after me to call since you left. I have fourteen missed calls from you. Let's just say I'm returning one of them."

"Ah. Ok. Well. Hi, then."

"Hello."

"Are you…"

"Am I what?"

"I was going to ask if you're all right, but I already did that."

"Yes, you did."

"Mm."

"Did I wake you?"

"Just a bit."

"I'm sorry."

"Mm. S'ok."

"How…ah…how was your day?"

"…Sherlock you're giving me the creeps."

"Oh. I apologize."

"Day was good. Oh, well, mostly good, anyway. All the company's gone so now it's just me and Harry and mum and…Christ. Harry…well. She's trying, I'll give her that. But she's driving me mad. I wish like hell I hadn't asked her back to ours. If we get through the rest of the visit without shouting at each other, it'll be a miracle. But, still, I'm glad to be coming home tomorrow. You?"

"I'm glad, too. Flat's too quiet."

"I meant, how was your day."

"Ah. It was…adequate. Slept for most of it. Went 'round Lestrade's."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yes."

"And? How's the inspector?"

"Oh, he wasn't there. I wanted--"

"Christ, Sherlock, don't tell me this, I--"

"You're going to turn me in, John?"

"No, of course not, don't be stupid."

"Hah. John. Your moral compass, it fascinates me."

"You're welcome."

"Thank you."

"What's got you in such a good mood? Sherlock, what's so funny, why are you laughing?"

"Oh, no reason. It's good to hear your voice."

"Yeah?"

"I found a case file at Lestrade's. Cold case, something the Yard gave up on years ago. He's still thinking about it, though."

"Oh?"

"I think it might be Moriarty."

"Oh."

"I'm not going to do anything stupid, John. Don't look at me like that."

"I'm not…oh, never mind. So what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I wouldn't lie to you."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Never?"

"Not any more."

"No, look, that wasn't _lying._ I thought we'd been over this."

"I know that, that's not what I meant."

"Oh? What then?"

"Just that…nothing, forget it."

"No, seriously. You haven't…I mean…since that night, with the memory stick, you haven't lied to me since then, have you?"

"I…not intentionally."

"So…"

 

"Sherlock? Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Why did you call?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"Ok…well…talk, then."

"I've run out of things to say."

"Hm…well…I dunno. You could…tell me about this case. Why do you think it's Moriarty?"

"I don't want to talk about that. I've been thinking about it all evening. It's…I want a distraction."

"Oh, I see."

"You do? What do you see?"

"He spooks you, doesn't he. Just thinking about him--"

"Don't be absurd."

"Don't call me absurd! Dammit, Sherlock! I'm sick of this!"

"I'm--"

"Clearly you like me enough to keep me around, so I don't see why you feel the need to insult me every other breath. This isn't a one-way street, you know."

"What does that mean?"

"Oh don't be an idiot."

"Oh, I'm an idiot but you're not absurd? John you're not making any sense."

"What I mean is you can't just dismiss me and cite your superior intellect. I have every right to be taken as seriously as you, so don't give me that condescending look."

"You're well over a hundred miles away, how can you possibly know what look I'm giving you?"

"Because I've had to look at that stupid face of yours every day for the past year. I know you better than you think, Sherlock. What. What? Oh, come on, now what? What's funny?"

"Oh…oh, nothing. Nothing. I…am quite unforgivably fond of you, John."

"…I…er…yeah, I've no idea what to say to that."

"That's all right. I didn't really mean to say it. Ah…Oh, John. You do that to me, it's remarkable."

"I'm…hang on, should I be sorry, or should you be thanking me?"

"Oh, either. Both. It's all one. I…should probably go, now."

"No, wait, why?"

"Oh, no real reason."

"Sherlock…you're…you're not…I mean, you're not… _using_ , you are?"

"What? No. God, no. You're seriously worried about _that?_ For heaven's sake, John."

"Ok, ok. A 'no' would have worked. Sorry I asked."

"Well I'm not."

"I didn't say you were."

"You asked."

"An ask is not a say."

"Right. Well. Good night, John."

"Oh. Yeah. Well…ok. 'Night, Sherlock. I'll be home tomorrow."

"I know you will."

"You'll be at home, when we get in?"

"Possibly. Might be busy."

"Right, well. Ok, then. Good night."

"Yes, good night. Sleep well."


	3. Let It Undertow

Sherlock arrived at the station half an hour before the train was due in, not because he expected it to be early (the trains were never early, especially not this time of year) or because he thought that by so doing he would somehow speed along the time between the present moment and the future moment when he would see John again (preposterous--while he didn't deny that time could, in some instances, seem to run subjectively slower or faster, he did not imagine that one's actions could influence this), but because he simply hadn't anything else to do.

The flat was tidy, and if he stayed in it for one more moment he would only be fighting the temptation to mess it up again, just to see John's reaction. (John's face when Sherlock had done something just to irritate him was rarely predictable but always enjoyable.)

He was working on an experiment that needed to be left alone for the next twelve hours to yield the most accurate results and while he was normally fastidious in his protocol concerning his work, he had found himself possessed by an inexplicable urge to fiddle. More than once he'd caught his hand as it drifted toward the beaker on the counter.

So finally he had simply left. On the way out he'd turned the heat up, hoping it would be up to human comfort standards by the time he returned with John.

And Harry. He saw her first. The familial resemblance unmistakeable even if he hadn't just looked at her picture that morning.

She stepped off the train, blinking slowly. _Asleep moments before. Overtired. Like John, does not sleep well in the old family home. Relieved to be away from it, wishes she hadn't agreed to stay with us tonight. Is finding John's presence to be irksome. Is, as John would say, spoiling for a fight._

And then John was in front of him, beaming at him, and Sherlock registered the dull thud of an army rucksack hitting the pavement at their feet and his own soft exhale of pleasure before solid arms were around his middle and his own were around John's shoulders, feeling the unfamiliar texture of a new wool coat as he pulled him roughly close, inhaling the foreign scents that had overlaid the baseline smells of _John, Baker Street, London,_ the fingers of one hand pushing up through John's too-short hair to mold to the back of his skull, fitting their bodies together from knees to where John's nose was pressed against his shoulder.

"Christ it's good to see you," John's voice was muffled in his scarf, and he squeezed Sherlock hard before stepping back only as far as was necessary to look up at him. If Sherlock had ducked his head their noses would have brushed. John shivered. "Your hands are bloody _freezing_ mate. What are you doing without gloves on?"

John reached up to disengage Sherlock's hand from where it was still nestled in his hair and chaffed it between his own hands, not looking away. Sherlock felt the corners of his mouth turn down as he attempted to suppress a wild grin. Then there was movement in the corner of his eye. He ignored it. John didn't.

"Sherlock," he said, dropping Sherlock's hands and turning slightly, "this is my sister, Harry."

Harry looked as though Christmas had come again, Sherlock supposed the expression was, looking between Sherlock and her brother.

Sherlock stuck out his hand and received a firm shake. "Sherlock Holmes."

Harry opened her mouth to reply but John cut her off hurriedly with, "Shall we get on, then, before we all freeze to death? Sherlock I hope you've turned up the heat."

"Of course." Sherlock bent smoothly and picked up John's heavy pack just as John started to reach for it.

Harry adjusted her grip on her wheeled attaché case and spoke at last. "And get some food on the way, yeah?" She darted a look at Sherlock, eyes glittering, and murmured, "I hear there's a good Chinese your way. You know you can always tell a good Chinese by the door handle. I've heard some say the bottom third, but I reckon I like to be more precise and only go by the bottom fourth."

John's murmured _Oh, my god,_ directed Sherlock's attention to him instead of to his sister, and after examining his face--lips pinched in, slight flush around the ears, eyes focused on an unfixed spot several metres ahead of them--he gave a curt nod and said, "Chinese will be fine."

John glanced at him, eyes still worried but mouth relaxing. Sherlock smiled at him.

\---

The new year was approaching.

Harry went to bed sometime well before midnight, grumbling about the pointlessness of it all.

John and Sherlock bid her goodnight and she returned a perfunctory wave over her shoulder as she made her way to the stairs and up to John's room. John didn't say anything, and beside him on the couch Sherlock picked up the remote and switched the channel away from Jools Holland.

John got up to clear away the takeout containers and returned with the canary-yellow tent of a blanket Mrs Hudson had crocheted for them for Christmas. It was wonderfully soft and quite big enough to cover the entire couch, and Sherlock didn't protest as John draped it over both of them.

He was exhausted, but not willing to go to bed yet. He was enjoying just this, just being home, being full to bursting on greasy Chinese food, being next to Sherlock. Even Harry had been easier to take, with Sherlock beside him. With Sherlock ignoring her pointed digs, her innuendoes and crass implications. With Sherlock pretending to misunderstand her, John sat beside him on the couch and felt something swelling in his chest, a flame burning brighter with each glance and smile that Sherlock directed his way, and it didn't take him long to name the sensation; this was the physical manifestation of sharing a private joke. _This is what it feels like to be home._

He didn't realize that midnight had come and gone until he shifted on the couch to get more comfortable, grimacing as his phone dug into his hip. Squirming awkwardly to pull it out of his pocket, he glanced at the time. 12:29.

"Hey," he said softly, his voice husky with exhaustion. "It's past midnight."

"Mm," was all he received by way of reply.

He looked at him, lifting his eyebrows, a half-smile tugging at his lips, "Happy New Year, Sherlock."

"To you, too." Sherlock blinked, then looked at him, frowning. "What?"

John laughed. "Nothing. Just. Generally people kiss at midnight."

"They do?" Sherlock's frown deepened. "Why?"

"I have no idea." John held his eyes for another moment, then grinned and slumped back down against the arm of the couch, sleep pulling at his heavy eyelids. "Just one of those things."

He was asleep moments after, lulled off by the sounds of Connie Prince re-runs on the telly. He couldn't fathom Sherlock's fascination with the show, and he didn't bother trying. He simply, and quietly, enjoyed it.

He woke to Sherlock shifting beside him, the redistribution of weight rocking the cushions. He groaned slightly, his neck protesting the angle he'd had it in for the past hour or so, but before he got around to moving or opening his eyes Sherlock had draped his arm around his shoulders; was pulling him closer.

John let himself be pulled. He fitted snugly in next to his friend, nestling his head on Sherlock's bony shoulder. He smiled. He heard Sherlock's soft hum of approval. Already tumbling back towards sleep, he fought through the molasses mire of exhaustion, his hand creeping out from its tangle of blankets to find Sherlock's knee.

\---

They woke together, woven up in a knot of limbs and blankets and morning breath on the sofa. Blinking himself slowly awake, John wasn't surprised to find Sherlock's eyes already wide open and alert and fixed on his. A slow grin stretched chapped lips back from his teeth and he closed his eyes again because there was only so much of that _look_ that he could take. "G'back t'sleep, Sherlock," he mumbled.

For a moment he wasn't sure what it was he felt, brushing against his lips. He lay very still in case there was some easy explanation. Plausible deniability. Maybe Sherlock was just getting up and had brushed against him.

 _Don't be an idiot._ John knew a kiss when he felt one.

He let Sherlock kiss him, lying there on a sofa meant for an occupant maybe one-third the size of either of them. When he'd finished, John opened his eyes. "Well?"

"Well?" Sherlock repeated, gazing mildly back at him.

"How was it?"

Sherlock shrugged horizontally.

John felt his throat go dry, his heart pounding against his Adam's apple. Blinking twice, he offered, "Try again?"

Sherlock's expression didn't change for several long minutes. John knew him well enough to wait. At last, one side of Sherlock's mouth pulled up in a sad parody of a smile. He lifted one long hand to press against John's chest, making him all the more aware of the mad knocking of his heart.

"No," Sherlock said. "That was enough."

John wrapped trembling fingers around Sherlock's wrist. "You don't sound like it was."

"Neither do you."

"Well?"

"Well." Sherlock twisted his hand, capturing John's wrist and drawing it up to his lips. He might have been kissing his pulse point, but John was pretty sure he was just counting the beats of his heart. "It has to be enough. Do you see?"

John let his eyes flutter half-closed, and tried to see. But… "No, not really. I don't see."

"Because your eyes are closed."

Not anymore they weren't. John blinked, lifting his head to get a better look at him. "Did--was that a joke?"

"A very small one." Sherlock gave a flash of a smile, but quickly sobered. He touched John's cheek, staring intently into his eyes. "I was simply curious. I didn't think you'd mind."

"Mind?" John attempted a laugh that didn't really make it past his lips. He leaned into Sherlock's touch and felt him shift, responding to the touch, his palm hot against his skin. John's breath stuttered, shallow in his chest. "I…don't. Sherlock…"

"It has to be enough, because I can't give you any more, and you wouldn't want it anyway, not from me. Now do you see? Or," Sherlock stumbled, suddenly unsure. "Or--have I miscalculated?"

It was a long time before John answered. Morning light that had been just flirting with the windowpane was now pouring into the flat, finding every crack between drapery and ledge. John's eyes had slipped shut and his breath returned to normal before he'd formulated what he wanted to say.

"I wish..."

...and that was all he got out. Sherlock's hand flexed, gripping his wrist convulsively, just this side of painful. Words left him, and whatever it was he'd wished for vanished in the wake of the impatient sigh that huffed past Sherlock's lips.

Neither spoke, and neither moved. John fell asleep again before long. Self-defence, probably. Oblivion to the rescue. He didn't dream; the pictures behind his eyes were pure memory. Nothing more or less. Until the press of lips against his forehead subtly shifted the theme, and he woke alone on the couch with painful might-have-beens swiftly vanishing as consciousness exerted itself and reality turned his dreams cold.

\---

He was just sitting up when Harry stumbled down the stairs. She stopped on the landing and looked at him.

"Really?"

"Really what?" he snapped, in no mood to tolerate her antagonism. He stretched out his back and winced, pushing aside his cocoon-like wrappings.

"Really, he couched you?"

John didn't say anything as he stood and made for the kitchen. A surreptitious glance around the flat showed Sherlock's shoes and coat gone from their normal spots. Already out, then. John felt a dull twinge in his gut and wondered if they were just going to pretend last night--this morning--all the nights over the holidays--hadn't happened. He pulled down milk and Wheatabix and two bowls.

Sitting across from each other at the cluttered table, Harry pointed her dripping spoon at him. "You know, being gay is supposed to be _my_ thing."

His own spoon clattered against the bowl and he darted a glance at her before returning his eyes to his breakfast. "I'm not _gay,_ Harry. For God's sake."

"Oh. Ok. So, what, you're just in love with a man?"

"Christ, Harry. I'm trying to eat breakfast in my own flat after a week with mum. You couldn't give it a rest? I'm not gay."

"Methinks the doctor doth protest too much."

"And I think my sister's a raging lunatic with too much time on her hands. How do you manage it, Har? CEO-slash-alcoholic-slash-busybody? Do they give you any time off?"

Her lips pursed in an uncanny imitation of their mother, her eyes dark as thunderclouds. "And how's _your_ life going, baby brother? Saved any lives recently? Or, oops, have you been too busy chasing skirt to remember to apply for a job? And by skirt I mean Sherlock. _Because if you're not in love with him_ then the Earth does not fucking go 'round the sun."

"Get out."

Harry barked a laugh like she thought he was joking with her; he could see her retort primed on her lips. And then she saw the look on his face.

"Oh, Johnny, c'mon, you know--"

" _Out,_ Harry. I'm not going to put up with you in my own home. Get out."

"John…" She rose slowly, face gone ashen. "Look, I'm just messing with you. You care about him. It's good. It's good for you. Maybe he's a lunatic who honestly kind of scares me, but it's _good_ \--"

It was John's turn to unleash a bitter, unamused laugh. "Right. Good. That's good that it's good--that you've got such low expectations of me as to think I've fallen for a madman and you're _happy_ about it because, hey, at least I can fall for _someone_ , right? Y'know, there are worse things. Worse things than being single, I mean. Like being a bloody fuck _failure_ at being in a couple. You think I'd rather be like you, _Harriet_ , and have a string of broken hearts behind me, than be like--be like Sherlock, and at least know what it was I did _or didn't_ want?"

She stood gaping at him, and John pushed a shaking hand through his hair before realising he was still holding his spoon. Throwing it down into his bowl he turned and stalked away from the table.

He couldn't go to his room--all Harry's things were there still. Sherlock's room would have just proved her point to her. So he grabbed his jacket and tugged it on over yesterday's clothes, jerking open the door to the stairwell.

Sherlock was standing just outside on the landing.

John at least had the good sense to pull the door shut before letting out a mortified groan and slumping against the wall. From behind one hand he mumbled, not looking at Sherlock, "Should I even ask?"

"If I heard any of that?" Sherlock shrugged. "Not really. Shouting. My name."

"I'm going out," John said, edging past him. "I need some air."

Sherlock fell into step with him without a word. Out on the street their frosty breath mingled in a frozen cloud before their faces.

It was several long blocks before John had controlled the shaking of his hands. Sherlock, at his side, was quiet. Unusually quiet. Unnervingly quiet. His face drawn into a pinched and unreadable mask that set John's already frayed nerves on edge. As they stopped at a corner to wait for the green man, John tugged the zip on his coat up to his chin and tucked his hands under his arms.

"Next year we're doing New Year's with your family."

Beside him, Sherlock continued to say nothing. John sighed.

"That was a joke, Sherlock. I wouldn't--"

"I know it was a joke." Sherlock's voice was an abrupt and scornful sound, cold as the morning air.

John frowned at the street light, not looking at his friend. "Ok…"

The light turned and Sherlock didn't move. John paused with one foot in the street and one on the pavement. Sherlock was looking back the way they'd come, an expression of pained indecision across his usually sharp features. John stepped back up beside him. A woman in a bright red coat stepped neatly around them to cross the street just before the light turned. Two friends called _Happy New Year!_ to each other from opposite sides of the street. Sherlock finally met his eyes. That same sad half-smile from this morning tugged at his lips. John's heart decided of its own accord to vacate his chest and crowd up into his throat.

"Look, Sherlock," John reached out for him, his hand hesitating in midair for an awkward moment before settling on his arm just above the crook of his elbow. "About--about this morning. I shouldn't have--"

Sherlock shrugged his hand away, cutting him off as though the sound of John's voice was too annoying to tolerate. "It's quite all right. The fault lies with me. I…initiated."

John gaped at him, his brain stumbling around inside his skull, trying to patch everything together, all the pieces that had seemed to fit together over the last days and weeks falling to rubble around him. His head began to throb. He cleared his throat and mumbled, "That's not what I was--I mean, er, I didn't…"

He trailed off and Sherlock gave an impatient sigh.

John tried to meet his eyes but Sherlock was looking away. "I want things to be good. With us. I thought they were good. I just--that is. I wish that I--"

Sherlock hissed out a sharp breath and turned to look at him. John shied back half a step and fell silent, lips still parted over what he'd been about to say. _I wish that I knew what you wanted._ Sherlock's eyes narrowed and John had to look away.

The detective spoke at last. "I've just been down in Knightsbridge. I had an email before you woke up. Private case, jewellery theft. Shouldn't be too difficult. I've got a list of people I want to speak to before the afternoon's out."

Sherlock fell silent and looked away. John stood still, wondering if Sherlock was going to ask him to come along, saying nothing.

Sherlock shook himself before speaking again, and when he did his voice was closer to its normal tone. "I might not be home tonight. Tell Harry goodbye for me, if you'd like."

He reached up to knot his scarf tighter and turn up his collar against the chill, and without another word Sherlock walked away down the street.


	4. In Spite of All The Danger

Danger. _Thirteenth century. Anglo-French; Daunger. Power. Power to harm. Mastery over. Authority; control._ Fear. _Old English faer theoretically from a proto-Germanic cognate; danger._ Different. _Set apart. Different--dangerous--fear--fearful--_ Ecstasy. _Late fourteenth, in a frenzy; excited; fearful. From Greek ecstasis; displacement, astonishment. Entrancement._ Wish: _to strive after, wish, desire; be satisfied._ (Satisfy. Saturate.) Want. _Wen. Sanskrit. Vanati. He desires, loves, wins. Vanaiti. He wishes, is victorious. Old English. Wynn, joy; wenian, accustom, train, wean. Latin. Venus. Love, sexual desire, loveliness. Venerari. To worship._

 _No. No, no no. It doesn't work like this. I've been a fool. A fool. I, Sherlock Holmes, have been played for a fool, and for what? For whom? For a man. For John. The oldest and most ridiculous of human afflictions, and I have behaved just as stupidly as the apes around me. A stone through a wet paper bag. Stupid, stupid,_ stupid.

It doesn't work like this. It shouldn't work like this. Can't. John was supposed to be different. Had been proved, many times as he had thought, to be different. _Stupid._ No one is any different. All these thimble-minded humans are the same, they all act under one impulse, are all driven by one instinct alone.

 _Even John. Even John, who can't let tea be tea or bread be bread; I should have known that for John touch can never just be touch._

These tiny people, so lonely, so afraid of their own insignificance, so assured that a life alone is worthless but that two together is everything. They take any invitation they find and find invitation where none was intended.

 _And I can't kiss John again, nor let him sleep in my bed._

Because these things mean nothing to him, because they are simply precursors. Because the acts are meaningless except as conductors. Conduits to that all-powerful, non-sensical _more._

 _To need is human. To want is miserable._

'I wish…'

 _I know what you wish, John. That I was different. That you were. That we were. That we could have and be and do 'more.' That you could fix this, fix me, fix us._

Sherlock paces the cluttered floor of his bedroom long past the point of exhaustion, his mind as disordered as the room as he rages at John for being no different from any other stupid ape that he would overlook his own nature, and Sherlock's--when Sherlock had been so sure, so sure, that John had understood him--but no. Understand; _stand-before. Stand-among. Exist-between. Be close to; in the midst of. Wrong._ He can forgive John not understanding him. He cannot forgive John for not being faithful to himself. Let him desire Sherlock in any way that keeps him true to himself, but for the love of--anything; everything--why must he translate that desire into--something; anything--physical?

The treble clef has no notes for this mood and London hosts no crimes vast enough to overshadow it.

\---

1 January

John comes home smelling of alcohol and second-hand smoke. Sherlock is standing at the window with his laptop on the sill and doesn't look around when he comes in.

"Didn't think you'd be in," John says by way of a hello, shrugging out of his coat.

Sherlock sniffs. "I didn't realise you and Lestrade had become such…pals."

"What about that case, then? Any good?"

"No."

"Ah."

John stands there for a minute, but Sherlock volunteers nothing more. John makes his unsteady way up to bed.

\---

3 January

Sherlock declares on his website that it's open season on all minor mysteries, petty thefts and alleged crimes. He's taking any and all cases: First come, first served, no fee. The inquiries begin to trickle in at once. He lies on the couch in his tattered dressing gown, laptop on his stomach, airing people's family laundry, accusing their neighbours and insulting what passes for their intelligence, all without setting a foot outside Baker Street. He keeps up a running commentary on the general idiocy of humanity, whether John's there to hear him or not.

\---

7 January

John yells at Sherlock for the first time in months.

It starts like this: "She's threatening to _sue you,_ Sherlock! How the _hell_ is someone as smart as you so bloody _stupid?_ "

And continues like this: "Look at the state of this place, I can't believe we don't have roaches, the way you're carrying on. You haven't moved in days, there's probably mould growing beneath you. And what the _hell_ is this thing?"

And explodes into this: "What's keeping you here, then, doctor? Clearly we'd both be better off if you'd just leave. I've never known anyone so determined as you are to be a nuisance."

John does leave, in the stinging wake of those words. Of course, he has nowhere to go. And he can't shake the feeling of Sherlock's hateful eyes on him, no matter how far he gets from Baker Street. He ends up at the Stamfords'. He tells them one of Sherlock's experiments went wrong in the kitchen and the whole flat smells of sulphur. They wince sympathetically and provide him with tea and telly and a surprisingly comfortable Li-lo.

\---

8 January

John comes back to the flat in the evening after a day spent milling aimlessly around town.

Sherlock is curled in the arm chair, feet up, chain-smoking, locked in a staring contest with the skull.

John doesn't say anything about the smoking, but opens all the windows in the flat and goes up to put on a heavier jumper.

When he comes back down Sherlock is gone.

\---

10 January

 _NSY. Can you come? -Lestrade_

John stares down at the text. This is the first time he's gotten one of these in awhile. The first time he can remember getting one without Sherlock standing near enough that each could hear the other's phone go off simultaneously. He hasn't seen Sherlock in two days. Thinks he wouldn't mind going a few more days, yet. He spent a solid five hours cleaning the flat, after Sherlock left, and the place is, if not _sparkling,_ exactly, at least cosy and comfortable once more.

 _Sorry, not this time. -John_

He presses send and silences his phone, tossing it onto the couch and out of reach. The couch looks odd, cushions all plumped up and smoothed out and un-slept-on. John goes back to his book. Every few pages he glances up and around.

\---

11 January

It's nice to see Sarah. It's been absolutely ages, they realise, and they linger over dessert longer than either of them expected to. It's not quite a date, and John doesn't quite try to make it one, and neither does she. But it's not quite just a friendly dinner chat, either, and John walks home feeling an odd lightness in the soles of his feet. His spine seems to have stretched as well. He feels stretched all over. Loose.

He can hear the shouting coming from 221b all the way at the end of Baker Street, and everything contracts. His body is a coiled spring by the time he fits his key in the lock.

The flat is an unholy mess. Books and papers and at least one broken teacup litter the floor. Sherlock is pacing in front of the windows, shouting in the general direction of his mobile, sitting on the window ledge. And, on speakerphone, Lestrade is dishing it right back to him.

John puts in foam earplugs and goes to bed.

 

It's gone two in the morning before he comes back down. The flat is silent, and he can't sleep. He's picking his way across the living room when a shadow unfolds from his arm chair and cold fingers grasp his wrist.

"John."

"Holy--Christ, Sherlock! What are you doing?"

Dull light filters in from outside, falling across Sherlock's gaunt features and turning him skeletal; alien. He doesn't let go of John, so John steps closer.

"What's the matter? Lestrade's case?"

"It doesn't make sense. A sloppy murderer that leaves no clues? It gives every classic sign of being an act of butchery, utterly unpremeditated. What did he do then, vanish? Air lift out? How is it possible. Blood everywhere, buckets of it, gore, should have congealed, body burst like a melon, nothing left of it."

"Well couldn't it have been, I dunno, planned like that? Staged, somehow?"

Sherlock's eyes glitter up at him. John lays his hand across Sherlock's forehead; he's burning up. And purring like a cat, leaning into his touch, eyes drooping shut. John sighs and runs the fingers of both hands through his hair, massaging his temples gently.

"All right," John's voice is soft, hesitant. "Take me through it, then."

The detective's voice grows stronger as he speaks, sharper; his limbs begin to quiver as he nears his conclusion until he's sitting bolt upright, one hand latched onto the hem of John's jumper, his sentences growing choppy until he's left John behind. Then without warning he leaps up on a breathless _Oh!_ knocking John's hands away, his hair wild from John's attentions, bolting for the door. He's gone before John has recovered his balance.

John falls asleep on the couch, waiting to see if he'll be back.

The sun is up before he wakes to the dip of cushions beside him, and suddenly Sherlock is there, leaning his cheek on John's shoulder, letting out a shuddering sigh that speaks to utter, bone-deep weariness.

"No," John mumbles, sitting up and tugging on Sherlock's elbow. "We're not doing this again. C'mon."

Sherlock is boneless but easily led. John pulls him into his bedroom and they tumble fully-clothed onto the bed.

 

 _He wakes to warm breath on the back of his neck and freezes, blinking rapidly to bring the room into focus. Sherlock's room. Sherlock's breath, presumably. They're not touching . His breath is the only indication that he's there. John lifts his head slowly to peer over his shoulder. Sherlock is either asleep or a brilliant actor--which John knows him to be--and John spends longer than he means to watching him. He would have expected him to look younger, like this, or vulnerable. But he doesn't--he just looks like Sherlock. It's remarkable. John slips out of bed a minute later, leaving him sleeping-or-pretending in bed behind him._

 

"Good morning, Sherlock."

"It's afternoon."

"Did you sleep well?"

"Oddly enough…yes."

"Good. Breakfast?"

"Again--it's afternoon."

"There's eggs in the microwave and the bacon will be done in a moment. Coffee's on the table."

\---

26 January

 _John's profile in moonlight presents an interesting study. Shadows transform the familiar landscape of his features into an alien map. He holds off until John has been sleeping peacefully for two hours and then begins to explore. His body relaxes in sleep, the lines around his eyes and mouth have become less pronounced, skin sagging slightly without the tension in his jaw to hold its familiar shape. Slightly unsettling, this change. Reassuring is the way the ears never change. The nose. Stubble is an interesting sensation beneath sensitive fingertips. Breath against skin stirs tiny hairs, raises gooseflesh. He could set a clock to the rise and fall of John's chest. Until the nightmare begins, but then, Sherlock is there, a hand over his heart. And oh, that heart,_ racing _beneath his palm, and Sherlock wants to grasp it, hold it, examine it, pull it from his chest and find out what makes it go._

"Sher--Sherlock…what…"

"You were dreaming."

"That's…that's one word…for it…Jesus."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm. Yes. Fine. Good. Thank you."

"For what?"

"Waking me. Christ."

"Come here."

\---

2 February

 _Neither of them's asleep but they stopped talking almost an hour ago. Sherlock had just wrapped a case that was far,_ far _too risky for John's liking. And the idiot had known it, too--he hadn't told John what it was about until he couldn't hide it any more. He'd come home limping and John had railed at him while dressing up the nasty dog bite to his ankle. After feeding him painkillers and tea John had pulled him to bed and made him lie down. Then he lay down next to him. And then he put his arm around him. He told himself that it was to keep the idiot still--he was already trying to get up._

"Honestly, what kind of an idiot thinks he can take down a dog fighting ring _by himself?_ "

"Your kind, apparently."

"What?"

"Your kind of idiot. The kind of idiot you prefer."

"You think I prefer you like this?"

"You're markedly more affectionate with me when I've just done something dangerous."

"You're saying I've been _encouraging_ you?"

"Not exactly, no, I wouldn't use those words."

"I don't understand you."

"I'm aware."

 _He half-wakes when his bedfellow shifts beside him, and instinctively tightens his hold. Wild hair tickling his nose he burrows in closer, lips finding bare skin. A long hand winds around his. He squeezes back, legs tucking up, knees nestling behind knees. Warmth. Skin. Breath. Heartbeat. Blankets. Sigh. Shift. Moan._

"John."

"Mm."

" _John._ "

"Mm? Wha…?"

"You're…ah…"

"Oh. Oh, hell. God, Sherlock, I'm sorry. Did I--"

"Just--go. Please. Deal with it elsewhere."

"Elsewh…oh for fuck's sake, like I'd just--you really think I'm about to roll over and have a wank right here beside you? Christ."

"I didn’t do anything to precipitate this."

"Well _neither did I._ This _isn't my fault._ "

"Whose, then? It's your body."

"It's not so bloody simple as all that, is it? It's just…with the…the bed and the touching and _I was asleep_."

"Then maybe you ought to sleep elsewhere."

"Sherlock…"

"What?"

"Look, I'll be more careful."

"You can't both say it's not your fault and say it won't happen again."

"Can't you just take the apology and forget about it?"

"Is it that important to you?"

"Is what?"

"This."

"What is 'this'?"

"I…I don't…I don't _know._ "

"Sorry, what was that?"

"You heard me perfectly well, I'm not saying it again."

"No I'm not sure I did, it sounded like you just said you didn't know something."

"Oh, shut up."

"Yeah, it's important to me."

"I don't understand you, either, John."

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Surely there is someone else you'd rather be sharing a bed with."

 _John lies back down, wrapping a blanket around himself and looking up at Sherlock. Sherlock slowly lowers himself as well, putting his head down on John's pillow, their faces very close together. John breathes steadily, looking into his eyes. Just looking. Thinking. Hoping Sherlock can read something of what's going on in his head, because he's not sure how to put any of it in to words._

 _He thinks of all the people he's been with. Starting with Marta Petrescu all the way on to Sarah. He can remember all of them. Names, faces, birthdays, favourite desserts, moments in bed. There's not one of them that he ever thought of coming home to for the rest of his life. There's not one of them for whom he would survive, and willingly, being strapped to a bomb, being blown up and shot at, being chased through back alleys, being thrown from a moving lorry, being locked in an industrial freezer. And come back for more the next day._

 _Maybe this is 'missing the war.' Maybe this is a death wish. Maybe this is plain and simple madness. Maybe this is love. Maybe this is just his life. Maybe this is the hand of God, delivering him to someone who needs him. Maybe he needs to get more sleep._

"How is this possible?"

"Dunno, Sherlock."

"Eventually you will meet someone else. Someone you want to sleep with."

"Maybe."

"I won't like that."

"Then…it…"

"'It won't happen'? You can't promise me that, John."

"Maybe not."

"Promises mean very little, anyhow."

"Are you in love with me, Sherlock?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On what your reaction to my answer would be."

"May I kiss you?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to, but I though I should ask, first."

"Ah. Well. All right, then. …Well?"

"Well."

"How was it?"

"Not bad."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"Good news, though, for you. I still don't want to sleep with you."

"I'm glad to hear that, too."

"We can figure the rest out later, don't you think? We've got time."

"Indeed."

"What I mean is, I'm not letting you out of the house on that leg until it's completely healed."

"John, that's--"

"No. That's my final word on it. I will nick Lestrade's handcuffs if I have to. You walked too far on it already, if you're not careful you could have a limp for the rest of your life."

"Ah."

"Yeah, exactly."

"Bit not good, eh?"

"You're getting the picture, good. …what was that for?"

"I wanted to. Should I have asked, first?"

"No. No, that's all right. That's…good."

"Good. I'm...that is...you...we...are good."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"Right. Good. Well. In that case..."

"What?"

"In that case, now I know you're not going to run off, I'm going to sleep. I'm bloody exhausted."

"Not much of anywhere I could 'run off' to, anyway. My doctor has informed me I'm to stay off my feet."

" _Your_ doctor, you say?"

"Yes."

"I like the sound of that."

"Mm. Good. Go to sleep, John."

"Think I will. 'night, Sherlock."

"Good night, my friend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many many thanks to everyone who's read and enjoyed and commented or left kudos, every one has made my day. Thanks for sticking with this story to the end...not that this is really the end, there will be more in this 'verse. Thanks again.
> 
> And once again a world of gratitude is owed to ImpishTubist, and to mortalasabee, dragonfly, and thesmallhobbit. <3


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